Space Access Update #112 9/19/05

Henry Vanderbilt wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

Henry Vanderbilt wrote:

We have to ask, after forty years of stunning technological progress,
shouldn't we be able to improve on Apollo's cost-to-exploration ratio a
bit more than this?

We have to ask - what stunning technological leaps have occurred to
lead you to assume this is a rational question?

Let's see. Since 1965, when Apollo's approach was pretty much set,
we've seen somewhat better engines, several times better structures,
orders of magnitude better electronics, vastly more operational
experience, and markedly better organizational paradigms. From what
we can see, ESAS makes modest use of the first four, near zero use of
the last one.

In othe words - you can't identify or quantify 'leaps' that produce
significant cost savings while producing significant performance
gains.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

I spoke of "stunning technological progress", a fair
description of the last forty years. (Where are we
conducting this... discussion, again?) You brought
up "leap"; now you're quibbling over the difference
between leaps and stunning progress. A) there've been
plenty of leaps since 1965, and B) you're wasting my
time and everybody's bandwidth. Bye!

Derek Lyons wrote:

Henry Vanderbilt wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

Henry Vanderbilt wrote:

We have to ask, after forty years of stunning technological progress,
shouldn't we be able to improve on Apollo's cost-to-exploration ratio a
bit more than this?

We have to ask - what stunning technological leaps have occurred to
lead you to assume this is a rational question?

Let's see. Since 1965, when Apollo's approach was pretty much set,
we've seen somewhat better engines, several times better structures,
orders of magnitude better electronics, vastly more operational
experience, and markedly better organizational paradigms. From what
we can see, ESAS makes modest use of the first four, near zero use of
the last one.

In othe words - you can't identify or quantify 'leaps' that produce
significant cost savings while producing significant performance
gains.

D.

Henry Vanderbilt wrote:

I spoke of "stunning technological progress", a fair
description of the last forty years. (Where are we
conducting this... discussion, again?) You brought
up "leap"; now you're quibbling over the difference
between leaps and stunning progress.

US manufacturing productivity has increased by something
like 3.3%/year, on average. If nothing else, this kind
of incremental progress eventually adds up to cheaper
hardware. Over 40 years that's a 3.7x improvement.

Paul

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Henry Vanderbilt wrote:

I spoke of "stunning technological progress", a fair
description of the last forty years. (Where are we
conducting this... discussion, again?) You brought
up "leap"; now you're quibbling over the difference
between leaps and stunning progress.

US manufacturing productivity has increased by something
like 3.3%/year, on average. If nothing else, this kind
of incremental progress eventually adds up to cheaper
hardware. Over 40 years that's a 3.7x improvement.

The question is - when will we see that cheaper hardware? Outside of
commodity hardware (I.E. mass produced for the consumer market), we
certainly aren't seeing those gains.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
You brought up "leap"; now you're quibbling over the difference
between leaps and stunning progress.

When folks switch verbiage - it becomes suspicious, especially when
it's coupled with a handwaving attempt to avoid moving from general
spin to specific discussions.

A) there've been plenty of leaps since 1965, and B) you're wasting
my time and everybody's bandwidth. Bye!

In other words, you don't want to be actually held accountable for
your words.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:
US manufacturing productivity has increased by something
like 3.3%/year, on average. If nothing else, this kind
of incremental progress eventually adds up to cheaper
hardware. Over 40 years that's a 3.7x improvement.

The question is - when will we see that cheaper hardware? Outside of
commodity hardware (I.E. mass produced for the consumer market), we
certainly aren't seeing those gains.

The productivity gains are usually going to make vastly higher
performing things available for the same price - but usually for cost
or reliability figures of merit rather than top speed.

Look at airliners - cost per available seat mile is about as relevant
of a figure of merit as you'll find, and the 757 beats the 707 silly.

Or, in a more space-related vein, X-34 was going to be fairly
comparable performance-wise to the X-15, but was going to cost about a
third as much in real dollars.

-jake

Jake McGuire wrote:

Or, in a more space-related vein, X-34 was going to be fairly
comparable performance-wise to the X-15, but was going to cost about a
third as much in real dollars.

And the price/payload lb. of expendable launchers has been dropping.

Paul

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:53:10 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

Since the CEV provides it's own power, life support, abort systems, and etc,
why would the choice of launch vehicle make much of a difference? It's
pretty heavy, so you need a big launcher, but why couldn't you size it for
launch on either a Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V Heavy? What's fundamentally
different between the two that would make launching the CEV harder on one of
these than on the stick?

I asked someone from NASA why they didn't use the Delta or Atlas, and
here's his take on it:

"The process of bringing these vehicles up to modern human-rated
standards would be nearly tantamount to redesigning these vehicles
from the ground up. Sure, it's possible and it's something that's
been examined extensively over the last couple of years. Basically
it's been examined enough to understand that it isn't a cheap
alternative. On the other hand, all of the legacy Shuttle hardware is
indeed designed to be and certified as human rated."


--
Josh

"This is a devastating storm. This is a storm that's
going to require immediate action now." -George W. Bush,
four days after Hurricane Katrina

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 14:31:07 -0400, in a place far, far away, Josh
Hill made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Since the CEV provides it's own power, life support, abort systems, and etc,
why would the choice of launch vehicle make much of a difference? It's
pretty heavy, so you need a big launcher, but why couldn't you size it for
launch on either a Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V Heavy? What's fundamentally
different between the two that would make launching the CEV harder on one of
these than on the stick?

I asked someone from NASA why they didn't use the Delta or Atlas, and
here's his take on it:

"The process of bringing these vehicles up to modern human-rated
standards would be nearly tantamount to redesigning these vehicles
from the ground up. Sure, it's possible and it's something that's
been examined extensively over the last couple of years. Basically
it's been examined enough to understand that it isn't a cheap
alternative.

No, it's not cheap, but it's a lot less than developing two entirely
new launch systems.

On the other hand, all of the legacy Shuttle hardware is
indeed designed to be and certified as human rated."

The latter statement is meaningless (and the entire statement is self
serving). Certainly Shuttle was never human rated.

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 21:39:02 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 14:31:07 -0400, in a place far, far away, Josh
Hill made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Since the CEV provides it's own power, life support, abort systems, and etc,
why would the choice of launch vehicle make much of a difference? It's
pretty heavy, so you need a big launcher, but why couldn't you size it for
launch on either a Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V Heavy? What's fundamentally
different between the two that would make launching the CEV harder on one of
these than on the stick?

I asked someone from NASA why they didn't use the Delta or Atlas, and
here's his take on it:

"The process of bringing these vehicles up to modern human-rated
standards would be nearly tantamount to redesigning these vehicles
from the ground up. Sure, it's possible and it's something that's
been examined extensively over the last couple of years. Basically
it's been examined enough to understand that it isn't a cheap
alternative.

No, it's not cheap, but it's a lot less than developing two entirely
new launch systems.

It isn't entirely new, though. And we're talking a single system. So
it's adding a stage to an SRB.

On the other hand, all of the legacy Shuttle hardware is
indeed designed to be and certified as human rated."

The latter statement is meaningless (and the entire statement is self
serving). Certainly Shuttle was never human rated.

?

It was built from the beginning with human passengers in mind.

--
Josh

"This is a devastating storm. This is a storm that's
going to require immediate action now." -George W. Bush,
four days after Hurricane Katrina